Letterpress Calendar process

Photo by Miranda Anderson

Just thought I'd share some links to posts that some of our 2012 Calendar printers wrote on their experiences designing and printing their pages!

June printer, Miranda Anderson, shows step-by-step photos of her printing process.

Molly Moran, half of the February duo, posts on her blog about her and Laura McLean's page.

Alyson Hurt (January) walks readers through her process.

For photos and purchase information, see our 2012 Letterpress Calendar page.

Happy Hour 11.2.11

Some photos from last week's Letterpress Happy Hour!

Erika came by to set type for her second color on these cards:

The second color is going to say "You're so sweet" underneath this list of sugars. Love it!

Alyson came by to pick up her Letterpress Calendars and also to play around with setting some type for her holiday cards. Here are some proofs:

2012 Calendar Sneak Peek #3!

Got some new photos some newly finished pages of our 2012 Letterpress Calendar, courtesy of June printer, Miranda Anderson:

The theme for today's Sneak Peek is the letter J....

January (by Alyson Hurt):

June (by Miranda Anderson):

July (by Alison Whitty):

And a couple shots of the completed front and back covers (Kathryn Hoeppel, Sarah Hanks):

So exciting! We've now got 6 completed pages (not counting those that were printing over the weekend). Check out the other Sneak Peeks here.

2012 Calendar Sneak Peek #1!

Calendar pages are starting to appear in the studio! Here are some photos...

Laura and Molly were in the studio this week printing the first run of their awesome February design (I taught them my two-person printing method!):

While I was there, I could see Leslie'd started her October page by printing her lino block that she'd cut:

Also saw Morgan's beautiful May sunrays on the drying rack:

Lastly, a peek at Alyson's test prints for her January page:

Check out her blog post about her trial run here.

This is my favorite phase of the calendar project.... Going to the studio and seeing that new pages have appeared! Stay tuned for Sneak Peek #2!

Happy Hour 8.22.11

Photos from Monday night's Happy Hour!

Chase Clement, who took one of my workshops back in March, stopped by to check out the studio. He brought a copy of his book that he'd printed on an SP-20 with all handset type at Smith College back in 1972. Here are some photos. Amazing...

Alyson Hurt came to play around with some type to get ideas for the January page of the 2012 Letterpress Calendar:

Kathryn Hoeppel set some type to print onto watercolored cards:

She didn't really get to printing but I'm sure they'll look great when she's done.

Erin Brophy played around with making a pattern of ornaments. Maybe inspired by Chase's book?

Molly Moran printed the type she'd set at the last Happy Hour:

Curious to see what she ends up doing with these? Folded cards?

Lauren Emeritz also set some type for a birthday card (also serving as a prototype for her April page of the 2012 calendar):

I love how everything is all planned out on the graph paper.

Alison Whitty also came by to play around with some type for the July page of the calendar and to share some design ideas (sadly, I didn't get photos of these!)

The next Happy Hour will also be a critique of everyone's preliminary calendar page designs. Can't wait to see everyone's ideas!

Happy Hour 6.16.11 (Featuring Rainbow Roll)

Some photos from Happy Hour a couple weeks ago....

Dawn and Erika hard at work setting type:

Here's what Aly was working on:

And Lauren's project of the night (printed on the C&P):

 

We actually inked up the Universal with a rainbow roll, but unfortunately my camera died before I could take photos. Luckily, Aly took some shots with hers. Here's her type locked up. Pretty colors...

And her prints:

Happy Hours in July are going to be on Mondays. Hope to see you there!

More photos from Happy Hour

These photos have been hanging out on my computer and camera for some time, but they're really best for sharing. Now you can get a better glimpse of what's been going on in the letterpress studio these last few weeks (and months).Here's Julia printing a funny Ohio pun greeting card that debuted at DC Craft Mafia's Spring Thing.

And Jim setting type at a recent happy hour.

Kathy working on her awesome business cards.

Julia printing in some great magenta ink on the Chandler & Price Pilot Press. Julia and I are teaching a beginner's workshop on how to use the Pilot Press on July 24th. You can find more information and sign up here.


Lauren & Aly during the pressure prints mini-workshop at last week's happy hour.


And some of the work from the pressure prints mini workshop!

Happy Hour 6.1.11 (Featuring Pressure Printing)

Non-letterpress things have been eating up my time and energy lately so it's been difficult to keep up with the blog.... But I'm back now, and hopefully I'll be posting more frequently again!

I forgot to bring my camera to last week's Happy Hour. Luckily, two photo whizzes with blogs of their own were there! During last week's Happy Hour, we experimented around with doing some pressure printing.

Here's Jim's cutout and print:

And here's Alyson's:

I really love that all three of our pressure printers did designs that were type-based. Jim did prints of two different ampersands, Alyson did a cutout of a two mirrored 3's and Lauren (our third participant) appropriately did the word "June"! I did snap some photos of all the designs with Melanie's camera. Hopefully she'll have some time to post them in the near future.

Hope to see you next time!

Next Saturday: Photopolymer class!

Intimidated by the process of designing and printing with photopolymer? No need to be! I’ll be teaching my photopolymer class this coming Saturday March 19. This class is designed for those who’ve printed with metal/wood type before and want to learn the basics of using photopolymer, which allows us to print digital designs on the presses. I’ll go over how to set up plates on the press and everyone will print a page of useful tips to take home with them. Then we’ll go over how to design for printing with polymer, how to order plates from Boxcar Press and take a look at individual projects. Register for the class here!

Here are some photos of a photopolymer project taken by Aly Hurt. Aly was a student in my polymer class last year and designed the January page in the 2011 Pyramid Atlantic Letterpress Calendar:

 

 

Links Links Links

I realized that many of our regular letterpressers have websites, blogs or etsy sites that show their letterpress work (along with other stuff), so I decided to compile a list. Feel free to check out what everyone's been up to in and out of the studio! This list is by no means definitive - if you're a letterpresser at Pyramid and have a blog/site/etsy, please let me know!

Maintenance Day photos!

Huge thanks to all the volunteers that braved the 20 degree weather and came out to our maintenance day:

Beth Schaible, Steve Cole, Aly Hurt, Beck Levy, Bob Cmarik, Jamillah Abdullah, Angelica Temoche, Bea Jackson, Robin Childers, Elizabeth Levenson, Marty Ittner, Daniel Zadorozhnny and Morgan Ward. 

Apologies for the poor photo quality... I forgot my camera and was stuck taking pictures with my phone!

Here's Aly and Elizabeth working at cleaning the bed and bearings of the Universal 1:

Look at the gunk they scraped off:

Here's Steve and Beck cleaning the 4T's lockbar's disassembled parts:

Nice and shiny! Wish I'd taken a "before" shot...

Former Letterpress Associate Beth Schaible working with Bob and Jamillah on the 4T:

Screenprinting Associate Marty Ittner swept and mopped the floor between and behind the presses:

Thanks, Marty!!

It's hard to believe that with all the hours and elbow grease we put in today, the presses could still use a lot more! We hope to have another maintenance day in six months or so to really get these guys in tip-top shape. Melanie, Leslie and I hope to see you at the next one!